“I have not seen them fighting yet, sir, but to my mind people so fond of using their knives are not likely to be of much account, when it comes to manly, straightforward fighting.

“Well, your honour, if you are to go as a major, you will need some slight alterations in your uniform—­more gold lace, and such like.  So I had best see about it, at once.”

“I did not think of that, Mike; but you are right.  I don’t know whether, as I only hold temporary rank, I have a right to wear the uniform of a field officer; but, as the duke wishes me to be able to speak with some authority, there can be no harm in making the change, and the additions can easily be taken off, upon my return.”

“The duke ought to have given you the full rank, instead of the temporary one, sir.  You have done more work, since you came here, than all the colonels and majors on his staff.”

“As far as work goes that may be so, Mike; but as the work consisted in carrying despatches about on horseback, it certainly affords no claim for promotion.  And, indeed, I have no wish whatever for it.  I am already the youngest captain in the service, except the young nobles who got their commissions as colonels, without even serving a day in inferior rank.  I feel uncomfortable now when I go to our regiments, to see men who have been years in the service, and gone through many a desperate action, still lieutenants; while I, after two years’ service, and still under nineteen, am a captain.”

“Yes, sir; but you know that you saved eight or ten thousand men to France at Oudenarde, and you lost a hand in the service of the country.  That would count for a great deal.”

“It counts for something, no doubt, Mike, but many of these officers have risked their lives a score of times, and been wounded frequently, though they may not have lost a limb.”

“Ah well, sir!” Mike said, philosophically, “Luck is everything.  And who would go soldiering, if it was not so?  When going into battle, everyone knows that a lot of his comrades will be killed, but he trusts to his luck to get through safely.  One man gets promoted and another doesn’t, and he hopes that luck will come his way next time.  I don’t say that your honour’s promotion has been luck, but you have had luck in being on the staff of the Duke of Berwick, and everyone knows that it is the staff officers who get the credit and promotion, while the men who do most of the fighting get passed over.  There would be nothing to say against that if, as in your honour’s case, a man was chosen for the staff because he had done something that showed that he was fit for it.  But it isn’t so here.  If a man belongs to a good family, and has interest, he gets a good appointment; and it is mighty seldom that a man is taken from his regiment, and put on to the staff, because he has done something which showed he was a good soldier.”